Sadly the NHS has been the victim of chop-and-change policies over the years, started by Margaret Thatcher, resulting in massively expensive, top-heavy structures to the detriment of patients and staff, especially GPs.

The shop-and-drop NHS being propounded will be nothing more than a half-baked symptom service.

We must appeal to prime minister Gordon Brown to appoint a publicly accountable royal commission to steer the NHS, allowing it to respond to the needs of patients and front-line staff, from consultants to family doctors.

That would be the proper tribute to the wartime sacrifice of generations of British people when the NHS was born in 1948. I hope Mr Brown will seek a traditional British consensus in taking the NHS back to basics - supporting doctors in helping patients ... and taxpayers.